Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (19.2007(2010))

SHEIKH ABD EL-GURNA

EGYPT

[cf. Fig. 4, bottom left]. Simon was
presumably the one who wrote the text (last
line) and Joseph the teacher who checked it
(name below the text). A reed pen and two
sketch designs of decoration on limestone
chips were also found. The pottery deposit,
mainly sherds of amphorae and a few water
jars, also merits attention. Between the
vertical shaft and the chamber the monks
had introduced a shallow vestibule about
0.70 m deep; the walls were raised of mud
brick with a barrel vault resting on two
wooden beams ripped from wooden
polychrome coffins. The walls and floors
had been plastered with a kind of mud
plaster by the Copts.
Back in the corridor, a limestone slab
with traces of relief decoration noted in the
previous season in the floor between the
bench and the “cellar” shaft was now lifted,
dismantling for the purpose a wall standing
partly on these slabs and afterwards
restoring it in the original order. The relief
slabs, which constituted the original
foundation of the wall, were replaced with
modern limestone blocks of the same size.
Upon preliminary analysis, one of the relief
slabs [Fig. 6] was identified as a large
fragment of a funerary stela from the Late
New Kingdom (most likely the Nineteenth
or Twentieth Dynasty) and the other as
a fragment of a relief from a temple of the
same period bearing a representation of an
unidentified deity seated on a throne,
holding an ankh in the left hand and
a flower bouquet in the other one [Fig. 7\.

Further inside the tomb, six narrow test pits
were excavated along the walls of the
corridor in places where the original
stratigraphy of the rather low fill in this part
of the tomb appeared to be undisturbed.
Both leveling and occupational layers were
recorded. A thin occupational layer attested
directly on the rock had naturally evened
out all the irregularities of the floor. On this
lay a layer of ashes and burnt stone
presumed to date from the earliest phase of
use by the Coptic monks. This was then
leveled with rock debris containing
numerous very poorly preserved objects
from the Pharaonic period, mainly ushebti,
potsherds, textiles and cartonnages. This
layer formed a bedding under the stone-tile
floor of the Copts.
The present work has contributed to
a better understanding of the chronology of
the hermitage and the changes that the
adaptation into a hermitage involved. It
now appears that the monks inhabiting the
complex in the earliest phase, in the
6th-early 7th century AD, were engaged in
manufacturing textiles and basketry. In the
middle of the 7th century the hermitage was
abandoned for a few or a few dozen years
and reoccupied in the second half of the 7th
century. This second phase lasted through
the end of the 8th century and perhaps
a little longer. The occupation of the monks
at this time seems to have been leatherwork,
starting with simple utilitarian products like
belts and sandals and ending possibly with
codex covers and bookbinding.

top
Fig;. 6. Lower part ofa limestone funerary stela (H. 38 cm, IV 57 cm, depth of relief about lcm)
(Photo T. Gorecki)
bottom
M Fig. 7. Fragment of a relief depicting a deity (H. 38 cm, Wl 51 cm, depth of relief about 0.7 cm)
(Photo F. Gorecki)

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Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 19, Reports 2007